[Conspiracy theories and COVID-19: How do conspiracy beliefs arise?] / Théories du complot et COVID-19 : comment naissent les croyances complotistes ?

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has caused an unprecedented global crisis, and a proliferation of conspiracy theories. These conspiratorial beliefs has contributed to weakening the credibility of government public health measures, limiting citizens' access to reliable sources of information, and disrupting the response of health systems to the crisis. Several hypotheses have been proposed in psychology and social science to understand the genesis of these beliefs during a pandemic, including generational, socio-cultural and political characteristics of individuals, and psychological factors such as the desire to preserve one's safety, to maintain a positive self-image, or even to strengthen its social role. However, recent discoveries in cognitive science about belief updating mechanisms offer new insights into the generation of conspiratorial beliefs across time and culture. In this paper, we offer a definition of conspiracy theory and a classification of conspiracy beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We show how the mechanisms of belief updating may explain the genesis of conspiracy theories, and we propose several hypotheses supported by contemporary research in cognitive and social science.

Toward a computational enactive, extended, embedded, emotive, and embodied (5E) psychiatry

Introduction: Psychiatry is challenged by a plurality of complementary approaches. These challenges stem from the existence of multiple levels of understanding, i.e. systems of representations, tools, methodologies and objectives in psychiatry–ranging from computational approaches and systems dynamics to the multiplicity of emerging nosographies, such as the NIMH Research Domain Criteria project or staging models. In this plurality, a significant number of clinicians have adopted the biopsychosocial model. However, such a model has been widely criticized for more than twenty years. In parallel, science has declined a set of different pluralistic frameworks. Thus, through the challenges of computational modeling in psychiatry, we will see how the enactive approach of psychiatry could respond to this multiplicity. Indeed, such an enactive approach considers that perception is a (predictive) activity, which gives sense to the environment (i.e., sense making). Perception and, by extension, cognitive processes are not internal representations of the outside world, but they are deployed according to the 5E approach, i.e., an embodied, embedded, enacted, emotive and extended approach. Methods: In this article, we first study the pluralist framework in psychiatry, in order to show its contributions in the clinical practice. Secondly, we analyze the contributions of the enactive approach for clinical practice in psychiatry. Results: Two forms of pluralisms can be described: a non-integrative pluralism and an integrative pluralism. The first examines the coexistence of different potentially incompatible or untranslatable systems in the scientific or clinical landscape. The second proposes the development of a general framework, bringing together the different levels of understanding and systems of representations. However, pluralism has many pitfalls and limitations. Especially by allowing computational modeling, the enactive framework, anchored both in cognitive sciences, theory of dynamic systems, systems biology and phenomenology, has recently been proposed as an answer to the challenge of integrative psychiatry. Conclusions: A significant number of mental health professionals are already working accepting such a variety of clinical and scientific approaches. We show that the enactive approach allows psychiatry: (1) to consider the subjectivity and the patient's experience, (2) to articulate different “granularities” within the clinical consultation, (3) to explain the benefits the creation of meaning for the patient, (4) to provide concrete models, (5) to support pedagogy in psychiatry. The enactive approach provides a conception for understanding psychiatric disorders as embodied, embedded, enacted, emotional and extended. In that way, the manifestations experienced by the patients are sense making experiences and can be conceived according to various levels of granularity.

[Coronavirus: Predictive brain and terror management]. / Coronavirus : cerveau prédictif et gestion de la terreur.

Emerging infectious diseases like Covid-19 cause a major threat to global health. When confronted with new pathogens, individuals generate several beliefs about the epidemic phenomenon. Many studies have shown that individual protective behaviors largely depend on these beliefs. Due to the absence of treatment and vaccine against these emerging pathogens, the relation between these beliefs and these behaviors represents a crucial issue for public health policies. In the premises of the Covid-19 pandemic, several preliminary studies have highlighted a delay in the perception of risk by individuals, which potentially holds back the implementing of the necessary precautionary measures: people underestimated the risks associated with the virus, and therefore also the importance of complying with sanitary guidelines. During the peak of the pandemic, the salience of the threat and of the risk of mortality could then have transformed the way people generate their beliefs. This potentially leads to upheavals in the way they understand the world. Here, we propose to explore the evolution of beliefs and behaviors during the Covid-19 crisis, using the theory of predictive coding and the theory of terror management, two influential frameworks in cognitive science and in social psychology.